Morning Linkage (May 5)

Transportation: More on the sad state of our rail sys­tem. (With a lit­tle swine flu pan­ic thrown in.) http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/05/flu-pandemic-could-put-send-us-freight-system-to-the-icu/ A cool fold­ing two-wheel trans­port. Summary here: http://www.core77.com/blog/events/mobility_concept_wins_buckminster_fuller_challenge_13365.asp More images here. http://challenge.bfi.org/winner_2009 Stupid prod­uct — fun­ny videos. (A seg­way knock off for the under 8s.) http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/05/05/dareway-unsafe-at-any-speed/ Technology: A use­ful site list­ing alter­na­tives to var­i­ous soft­ware. Some of the alternatives … 

Morning Lnkage (May 4)

Science: Seattle is adopt­ing new math text books. Cliff Mass has some­thing to say about it. You should too. http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2009/05/seattles-big-math-decision.html A study of zebra finch­es brings up new ques­tions about how bird song is taught/learned. I nev­er feel com­fort­able with the broad con­clu­sions about the nature of cul­ture and cul­tur­al inher­i­tance that peo­ple want to draw from these … 

Morning Linkage (Apr 29)

Style points: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/04/28/photo-stylish-robot.html http://advancedstyle.blogspot.com/2009/04/reader-submission-patricks-photos.html Legal Notes: The Google books set­tle­ment may not be — a set­tle­ment that is. http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/04/googles-book-settlement-delayed-as-resistance-appears.ars Didn’t they teach these fools to be care­ful who they bul­ly. Lessig twit­ters Warner Bros. take down notice. http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/29/warner-music-claims.html Images: If you’re feel­ing the need to be total­ly creeped out. Bits from the lat­est auc­tion of MJ’s stuff. … 

Morning Linkage (Apr 27)

Some vague­ly relat­ed pho­tos from Milan Design Week. Many cool seat­ing sur­faces. Some that I would hes­i­tate to call chairs. http://www.core77.com/blog/milan09/milan_design_week_09_tuttobene_13287.asp Design as a pro­fes­sion is cur­rent­ly hav­ing a cri­sis of rel­e­van­cy. Trying to fig­ure out how it can val­ue to soci­ety rather than mere­ly add val­ue to the bot­tom line. As is the case in …